Chapter 45 Anchors and Ash
The bond snapped into focus, sharp and clear and there. The boy’s mark flared too, unasked but unavoidable. The network between us lit up—three points of gold and silver, humming in unison.
The girl’s shard responded like it had been waiting for that exact chord.
The light around her surged toward us, wild and eager.
She screamed. “It’s pulling—”
“Let it,” Drake said, voice taut. “But don’t let go.”
He stepped closer, dragging me with him, until we were just out of arm’s reach. The heat was unbearable, but the bond grabbed it, re-routing it somewhere—into him, into me, into the earth, I didn’t know.
“Breathe,” I told her. “In on three, out on four. Again. Match me.”
She did. Barely. Her hands left bloody streaks on the stone as her grip slipped.
The shard fought. It wanted out. Wanted to join the chorus in the sky, to burn loose and uncontained.
“Talk to it,” the boy said. “Like you talk to him.”
I didn’t have time to wonder when he’d gotten so annoyingly insightful. I just did it.
“Enough,” I said—to the light, to the shard, to whatever part of Varanth’s echo was listening. “You want connection? You have it. You want a mirror? Here.”
The mark on my wrist burned white-hot. The bond flared, not out, but in—tightening around the girl’s resonance like a net catching a falling star.
“Drake,” I gritted. “Little help.”
He let his own fire rise, not to burn, but to anchor. I felt it through our joined hands—his will wrapping around the shard’s wild surge, giving it walls, structure, shape.
“Take what you can,” he told it. “But you stay with her. You burn with her. Not without.”
For a terrifying second, it felt like it would listen to no one. It slammed against us, against the bond, against the village itself.
And then—slowly—it stopped trying to escape.
The light drew in, condensing back into the girl’s veins, into the cracks along the well, into the stone under our feet. The column in the sky flickered, then shrank, from spear to beam to faint line.
The pain in my skull eased. The pressure in my chest loosened.
The girl collapsed to her knees, panting. The iridescence in her eyes softened, settling into a faint, ember-like glow.
“It worked,” the boy whispered.
“For now,” Drake said.
The village exhaled.
Literally. I heard it—the creak of cellar doors, the hitch of held breath turning into sobs, the rustle of bodies uncurling from hiding places.
People emerged in ones and twos. A woman with ash in her hair. A child clutching a cracked wooden toy. An older man missing two fingers on his left hand. They stared at us like we were the next disaster or the only hope they had left.
Maybe both.
The young woman wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and staggered to her feet. Up close, she looked more exhausted than dangerous. Shadows under her eyes. Burns along her arms. The mark of the shard, faint now, curled around her collarbone like a necklace.
“What did you do to me?” she asked hoarsely.
“Anchored it,” I said. “You’re still carrying the shard. But it’s not trying to rip its way out anymore.”
“For how long?” she pressed.
I looked at Drake.
“Depends,” he said. “On you. On them.” He nodded toward the villagers. “And on how fast the Syndicate gets here.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“Syndicate?” the older man echoed.
“They’ll have felt that flare,” Drake said. “And they’ll come to ‘contain’ it. Meaning you.”
The crowd shifted uneasily. The girl’s hands clenched.
“They drag people away,” she said. “Everyone knows. If they find out what I am—what happened—they’ll—”
“They’ll try,” I said. “But we’re not going to let them.”
“We?” she repeated.
I sighed. “Congratulations. You’re now officially part of the top ten list of ‘people the Council wishes would stop existing.’”
“Top five,” Drake corrected.
“Don’t boost my ego,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”
The girl huffed a laugh that was almost a sob. “Who are you people?”
“Bad decisions with good timing,” I said. “I’m Christine. That’s Drake. This is—” I glanced at the boy. “Do you want to use your real name?”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “Just call me Ember,” he said.
Of course he did.
The girl eyed us like she was still deciding whether we were hallucinations. “I’m Sera,” she said finally. “Sera Nalin.”
“Nice to meet you, Sera Nalin, accidentally-chosen-by-an-ancient-cosmic-fire,” I said. “Here’s the fun part: you’ve got options.”
She snorted. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
“You do,” I said. “You can stay here and pretend this never happened—which it did, and they will find out. You can run and hope the fire doesn’t lose its mind without support. Or—” I glanced at Drake. “You can come with us.”
She stared. “Where?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Looked at Drake.
“Everywhere they don’t want us,” he said. “And everywhere the shards wake next.”
“That’s not a destination,” she said.
“No,” he replied. “It’s a warpath.”
The villagers murmured uneasily. The older man stepped forward, hat twisting in his hands. “She can’t just leave,” he said. “She’s my daughter.”
Sera flinched. “Father—”
He looked at her—really looked, at the burns, the faint glow, the cracks in the well. Fear warred with love in his eyes.
“I don’t understand this,” he said. “I don’t want to. But I know what happens when the Syndicate comes. They don’t ask. They take. If she stays…”
“I’ll put you all in danger,” Sera finished, voice thick.
“You already did,” he said. “But you also stopped it. I saw. I felt it.” He turned to Drake. “If she goes with you—”
“She’ll be hunted,” Drake said. “But she’ll be with people who know what she is, and how to help her not burn herself alive.”
“And if she stays?” the man pressed.
Drake didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
The man swallowed hard and looked at his daughter. “You always wanted to leave,” he said. “To see the cities. The world.” His voice broke. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“Neither did I,” she whispered.
He stepped forward and cupped her face, thumbs brushing away soot and dried tears. “Go,” he said. “Before I change my mind.”
Sera’s breath hitched. “I don’t—”
He kissed her forehead. “You’re my girl,” he said. “Whatever you are now. Just… don’t let them turn you into something that doesn’t remember us.”
“I won’t,” she whispered. “I swear.”
The shard pulsed faintly, as if in agreement.
She turned back to us. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll come. Not because I trust you, exactly. But because I trust this less.” She nodded at the well, the sky, the fading column of light. “And if what you’re saying is true, I’d rather choose my own leash.”
“No leashes,” I said. “Just very intense, occasionally back-talking oaths.”
She arched a brow. “Comforting.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I said.